Featured Pro Portfolio: Hossein Diba

By Sierra Mon - May 6, 2019

Hossein Diba is a CG character artist, best known for his jaw-dropping likeness modeling. Since becoming an ArtStation Pro member, he says one of his favorite features is being able to customize his website to look just how he wants it.

“I honestly don’t feel I need to have my own website anymore.”

See Hossein’s ArtStation-powered portfolio website.

In this interview, he shares his motivation, tips for sculpting likenesses of your own and more.

How did you begin your career as an artist?

I loved to paint since my early childhood. As a kid, I used to draw on papers, walls and everything I could. Later in life, when I saw the movie Jurassic Park, it was my absolute highlight for days and even weeks later. I imagined that one day, I could be making a movie like that or making models like the dinosaurs that inspired me.

Later, when CG began to become more and more sophisticated, I soon realized that the entire world could be made in 3D. The funny thing is that I really loved to make Dinasours, creatures and all but as I got further into the sculpting world, I got more into realistic human sculpting and I grew to love it the same!

Tell us about a lesson you’ve learned from a challenging project.

I think all of the projects I’ve worked on have their own challenges. They might be frustrating at the time we are working on it but these are the things that teach us to be better because we always can learn from our mistakes.

What kind of exercises or practice do you recommend for people to improve in sculpting likenesses?

I believe to sculpt a likeness at its best, one needs to learn to observe better. We need to train our eyes and try to capture what we see as much as we can. I think sculpting from scratch can help a lot to get better at likenesses.

Try to make different shapes as they are. Try to avoid having your own style in a likeness. Some people want to do likenesses but still want to have their signature on it. I think for a likeness, we need to just sculpt what we see and check our model with reference as much as possible. Also, drawing can help a lot!

What is the best art advice you’ve ever received?

Not sure if this counts as advice, but whenever someone says you can’t do something, I put all my effort to do it and most of the time I succeed. I guess this is a good thing. Some people may get discouraged but not me. Even when I get a harsh comment that is not based on reality, I try to use it to my advantage.

See more of Hossein’s work on his portfolio website. Find out more about ArtStation Pro websites here.